Removing a caveat in Victoria when several creditors have lodged one

A caveat stops your client dealing with their land. Where several creditors have lodged one each, and nobody agrees on what is owed or who gets paid first, the way out is section 90(3) of the Transfer of Land Act 1958.

A debt is not an interest in land

This is the question that decides most of these applications, and it is decided before anyone argues about quantum. Section 89(1) says who may lodge a caveat:

Any person claiming any estate or interest in land under any unregistered instrument or dealing or by devolution in law or otherwise or his agent may lodge with the Registrar a caveat in an appropriate approved form forbidding the registration of any person as transferee or proprietor of and of any instrument affecting such estate or interest either absolutely or conditionally.

• The claim must be to an estate or interest in the land. Being owed money is not one.
• A loan agreement with a charging clause can create one. An invoice, a judgment debt or an unpaid retainer does not.
• So read each caveator's instrument first. A creditor who cannot point to a clause giving an interest in the land has no caveatable interest, whatever the size of the debt.

The application

Section 90(3) is one sentence, and it is deliberately wide:

Any person who is adversely affected by any such caveat may bring proceedings in the Court against the caveator for the removal of the caveat and the Court may make such order as the Court thinks fit.

• Any person adversely affected may apply. That is wider than the registered proprietor, so a mortgagee or a purchaser under contract can bring it.
• The Court's power is unconfined on the face of the section. It may remove the caveat, refuse, or make an order on terms.
• Each caveat is judged on its own claimed interest. Five caveators means five questions, not one.

Where the debts are disputed

A fight about how much is owed does not decide a caveat application. The caveator still has to show an interest in the land, and a disputed sum secured by a charging clause is still secured. Sort the two questions in that order.

• Deal with the caveats that claim no interest first. They come off on the statutory question alone, without reaching the accounts.
• For the rest, the quantum argument belongs in the proceeding about the debt, not in the caveat application.
• If the land has to settle, ask for an order on terms. Section 90(3) lets the Court make such order as it thinks fit, which is wide enough to accommodate the money being preserved while the debt is fought out.

What it costs a caveator to be wrong

A creditor who lodges a caveat to apply pressure, without an interest in the land, is exposed under section 118:

Any person lodging with the Registrar without reasonable cause any caveat under this Act shall be liable to make to any person who sustains damage thereby such compensation as the Court deems just and orders.

A settlement that falls over because of a caveat lodged over a plain debt is exactly the damage that section contemplates. It is also the letter to write before issuing: many caveats come off once the caveator is told what section 118 says.

This article is general information about the Victorian provisions, not legal advice, and does not take account of your client's circumstances. It is current as at 12 September 2026. Other states and territories have their own caveat provisions, and the Court's approach to an application of this kind turns on case law that is beyond the words of the Act. Check the current Act and the Supreme Court's Property List practice note before acting.